Editor:
We disagree with the categorically determined livability tax that is being implemented by Canmore’s town council.
As Albertans, we built a single-family home in Canmore 36 years ago. Since then, five times annually for three weeks at a time we lived there with our family nurturing friendships and ensuring patronage of Canmore builders, renovators, tradespeople, and businesses.
Our home inspired us to author research manuscripts as biomedical researchers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we survived there full-time. We paid property taxes annually, but used amenities sparingly, including healthcare. We, and families like us, believed we were valued residents or so we thought.
Now, it has been decreed that families like us must qualify for citizenship based on 183-day visas in our own homes or pay extra 'livability' tax. This provokes feelings of betrayal and discrimination. Are we assumed to be rich weekenders, able to afford extra tax or that we are speculators? The tax pits citizens against citizens based on paying extra tax vs. not required.
We neither rented our home, nor prepared a rental suite for profit or income. Now, if our home is not offered entirely to renters, options are to pay the penalty or sell. Further, declarations are needed with only two month’s notice, precluding time to move or find a local doctor. This violates principles of natural justice.
Contemporaneously with deliberations by Canmore’s town council, the CD Howe Institute reported Aug 1, 2024, about the outcomes of implementing an empty homes tax in the City of Vancouver with a five-year follow-up. Data shows that while housing availability improved, affordability did not, leaving average rent unchanged.
Since a key measure of livability is economic, this provokes the question of why the tax should be adopted if it does not improve affordability. The tax is misrepresented as livability enhancing. More promising is to address what has occurred in neighborhoods like ours in the past 10 years where torrid new home construction resulted in demolishing older housing stock. This caused new homes at high market prices, missing the opportunity to issue permits for affordable homes at below market rental.
In summary, our experience and others in this beautiful community is that our loyalty is being eroded by punitive taxation and stigma. The livability tax measure to address affordability is unsupported by evidence, suggesting that better approaches to address the housing crisis are needed.
Garth and Fay Warnock,
Canmore
